Cowon previews 4GB 0.85in HDD MP3 player

CES South Korea's Cowon this week demo'd at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas what it claims is the world's first micro media player based on a 0.85in hard disk drive.

The iAudio 6 contains a 4GB HDD - presumably the Toshiba drive that has just begun shipping - on which users can store WMA (including DRM-protected songs), MP3, Ogg, WAV, FLAC, MPEG 4 (AVI) and JPEG files. Picture and video are presented on a 1.3in, 260,000-colour OLED screen. The display is touch-sensitive.

The player connects to a host computer across the obligatory USB 2.0, but it also supports USB On-the-Go, allowing it to act as a host when it's connected directly to digital cameras and other media sources. The iAudio 6 has an FM tuner on board, too, and provides the customary voice recording facility.

Cowon claims the player will operate for up to 20 hours on a single battery charge - almost certainly much less when it's being used for video playback. The company did not say when the product will ship. ®